My second favorite cognitive dissonance story ever goes something like this (forgive me if I embellish, I heard the story second hand. I am sure I will be corrected as both of the people involved are friends of mine):

It's the mid-80's. Two young men are about to be the male leads in a high school play. One, a junior, is the star of his high school's drama department. The other is a talented freshman. He will, eventually, become the star of the department. This is his first production.

The freshman had been brilliant in rehearsal. The junior notices, as the show is about to open, the freshman is having terrible stage fright. The show opens and the freshman is horrible. His nerves completely debilitated him.

After the show, the junior pulls the freshman aside. He tells the freshman something along these lines:

I noticed that you had some stage fright problems tonight. I want to share with you this old, and honored technique to deal with stage fright. It's a classic technique used by many great actors throughout the years.

I want you to go out and buy the nicest crystal wine glass you can find. It has to be crystal.

Bring it to the theater.

As part of your show prep, you have to fill the glass with water. Stare at the glass of water. Make your mind as clear as the water. Become the water.

Once you are the water. Once your mind is that clear. Drink the water.

The freshman does this for the next show, and the subsequent run of the show. His stage fright disappears. He is brilliant on stage and steals the show.

At the end of the run, the freshman thanks the junior for the help, and for showing him this great acting technique.

At this point, the junior comes clean. He tells the freshman that he had made it all up. He was just trying to get the freshman out of his head.

The kicker for this is that the junior was my closest friend my senior year in high school, Byron ... who was, not much later, a groomsman in my wedding.

The freshman was my little brother, Craig.

Labels: cognitive dissonance